Ocean, nature, critters, and recreation

April 2017

Apr 29, 2017

A swimmer was bitten by a shark late Saturday at San Onofre State Beach in north San Diego County, according to several reports.

Details were sparse at the time of this post, but 10 News San Diego reported on Facebook that the female victim was airlifted to Scripps Memorial in La Jolla. The Orange County Register reported that the woman, who who had been wearing swim fins, was bitten in the buttocks-thigh area. The extent of her injuries was unknown.

Fox 5 reported that the victim was airlifted at about 6:30 p.m., citing a spokesperson at Camp Pendleton.

Great white sharks are occasionally spotted in this area, but the type of shark involved in Saturday's incident is unknown.

Apr 24, 2017

A humpback whale carcass that was towed offshore by Newport Beach lifeguards last Thursday was preyed upon by a large great white shark on Saturday, and towed offshore again Monday after nearly washing onto the beach in Oceanside in North San Diego County.

The accompanying footage was captured by Keith Poe about 15 miles offshore, southwest of Dana Point. With Poe was Ryan Logan, a Cal State Long Beach Shark Lab grad student, who placed two scientific tags in the female shark estimated to measure nearly 18 feet.

The carcass was under tow again early Monday by Oceanside lifeguards, after being spotted yards from the coast. "The carcass almost entered the surf line, and had it done so it would have ended up on the beach," said Greg DeAvila, battalion chief for the Oceanside Fire Department.

The adult female white shark was believed to have long since abandoned its feast, but DeAvila said there were "still plenty of other fish" swimming around the carcass. He added that lifeguards hoped to tow the carcass 10 miles offshore.

So in essence, once again, one county has passed a whale carcass off to another.

“The boat was full-on attacked 7 different times… usually at sunrise or sunset,” Poe said at the time.

The sharks also feasted on Wally's carcass before losing interest after it began to rot.

Wally was towed at least three times by L.A. County lifeguards. Then, over the course of a week, the carcass drifted southeast and threatened to come ashore at least twice in Orange County, before making landfall in San Diego County. Finally, contractors were hired to cut up and haul the carcass to a landfill.

It remains to be seen whether Scarlet becomes a problem for Oceanside or San Diego lifeguards, but at some point the carcass is likely to attract sharks.

–Photos showing Scarlet on Friday (top) and a white shark feasting on Wally last summer are courtesy of Keith Poe

Apr 12, 2017

A Florida family was greeted Sunday by a whale shark “longer than a school bus” and accompanied by hundreds of smaller fish.

“I heard my husband yelling over his regulator and looked up to see a what looked like a rolling cloud,” Brock said. “There were cobia and remoras everywhere - then I realized they were attached to something, and that something was a whale shark!”

The rare encounter with a 30- to 35-foot whale shark occurred off West Palm Beach as Brock was scuba diving with her husband, Keith Brock, her 13-year-old cousin, Addie, and their guide, Craig Buss.

Whale sharks are the planet’s largest fish and can reach lengths of about 40 feet. Fortunately for humans, they’re filter feeders and subside largely on plankton and small fishes.

Brock and her group had been diving with Pura Vida Divers at spot called The Trench, and had begun its ascent ascent from about 60 feet when the whale shark materialized in the distance.

“They are rare in Florida,” Brock said. “People dive their entire lives and never get to witness that.”

Making the experience more surreal were all the remoras and cobras attached to or swirling around the whale shark. (Remoras often attach to sharks and will eat parasites and other organisms from the skin of the host animals.)

“Our teeth were chattering,” Brock said. “The whale shark swam right at us, and then through us. Such a gentle giant. He barely had to flick his tail (which was much taller than me) to gracefully glide through the water.

“When he started to swim away we all just looked at each other in total disbelief. It was the most amazing experience I've ever had diving!”

Apr 10, 2017

A wave-cam pointed at the lineup of a popular Southern California surf spot on Monday revealed a fairly large shark breaching just yards beyond a few dozen surfers.

A reasonable person would think that such a spectacle would inspire a mass exodus, given that great white shark sightings in typically spike locally in late spring.

But there’s no visible reaction among surfers in the footage, indicating that they could not see the shark or simply did not care. The footage is from a fixed camera operated by Surfline at Lower Trestles, within San Onofre State Beach in north San Diego County.

Said Surfline’s Travis Kuhlman: “From that distance, they might think it's a baby whale – which is extremely common to see right now close to shore. But, it's also pretty common to see juvenile great whites near shore in Southern California. Especially in the San Onofre area. A lot of surfers would just continue surfing even knowing they had just seen a juvenile great white.”

If the latter is the case, the surfers deserve credit. Juvenile white sharks – those measuring to about 10 feet – prey almost exclusively on small fishes and rays. They do not develop a taste for seals and sea lions until they reach about 12 feet, at which time the migrate to more productive feeding areas.

Chris Lowe, director of the Shark Lab at Cal State University at Long Beach, agreed that this most likely was a white shark. “Based on the girth and pure white belly, I would guess a white,” Lowe said. “Not a pup, but probably a good 8 feet. I think SoCal surfers are getting used to the white sharks now. Let's hope for an ‘attack free’ year!”

The shark was first spotted at 10:12 a.m., via the webcam, by San Clemente surfer Jason Miller. Within an hour the Surfline post on Facebook had been viewed nearly 8,000 times. Among dozens of comments was this from Jonathan Spitler:

"That's no bueno... they don't play like whales, only breach when they're feeding... but again, maybe it's a talented cgi guy just trying to empty the line up for his afternoon sesh.”